“Some of our outfit seemed to sort of lean toward the proposition and some to sort of lean ag’inst it, without exactly statin’ their reasons why and wherefore. But amongst us all there wasn’t a man but whut relied mighty implicit on Billy Priest’s judgment, and besides which, you’ve got to remember, son, that discipline had come to be a sort of an ingrained habit with us. We’d got used to lookin’ to our leaders to show us the way and give us our orders and then we’d try to obey ‘em, spite of hell and high water. That’s the way it had been with us for four long years and that’s the way it still was with us. So under the circumstances, with sentiment divided ez it was, we-all waited to see how Billy Priest felt, because ez I jest told you, we imposed a heap of confidence in his views on purty near any subject you mout mention. The final say-so bein’ put up to him, he studied a little and then he said to the Missoury boys that hearin’ frum them about the Confederacy havin’ split up into pieces had injected a new and a different aspect into the case and in his belief it was a thing that needed thinkin’ over and mebbe sleepin’ on. Accordin’ly, ef it was all the same to them, he’d like to wait till next mornin’ before comin’ to a definite decision and he believed that in this his associates would concur with him. That was agreeable to the fellers that had brung us the invitation, or ef it wasn’t they let on like it was anyhow, and so we left the matter standin’ where it was without further argument on their part.
“They told us good-by and expressed the hope that they’d see us next day in Monterey and then they rid on back to headquarters to report progress on the part of the committee on new members and to ask further time, I s’pose. Ez fur us, we went into camp right where we was.
“Most of us suspicioned that after we’d fed the hosses and et our supper Billy would call a sort of caucus and git the sense of the meetin’, but he didn’t take no steps in that direction and of course nobody else felt qualified to do so. After a while the fires we’d lit to cook our victuals on begin to die down low and the boys started to turn in. There wasn’t much talkin’ or singin’, or skylarkin’ round, but a whole heap of thinkin’ was goin’ on – you could feel it in the air. I was layin’ there on the ground under my old ragged blankets with my saddle fur a pillow and the sky fur my bed canopy, but I didn’t drop right off like I usually done. I was busy ponderin’ over in my mind quite a number of things. I remember how gash’ly and on-earthly them old cactus plants looked, loomin’ up all ‘round me there in the darkness and how strange the stars looked, a-shinin’ overhead. They didn’t seem like the same stars we’d been used to sleepin’ under before we come on down here into Mexico. Even the new moon had a different look, ez though it was another moon frum the one that had furnished light fur us to go possum-huntin’ by when we were striplin’ boys growin’ up. This here one was a lonesome, strange, furreign-lookin’ moon, ef you git my meanin’? Anyhow it seemed so to me.
“Somebody spoke my name right alongside of me, and I tum’t over and raised up my head and there was Billy Priest hunkered down. He had a little scrap of dried greasewood in his hand and he was scratchin’ with it in the dirt in a kind of an absent-minded way.
“‘You ain’t asleep yet, Jimmy?’ he says to me.
“‘No,’ I says, ‘I’ve been layin’here, study-in’.’
“‘That so?’ he says. ‘Whut about in particular?’
“‘Oh nothin’ in particular,’ I says, ‘jest studyin’.’
“He don’t say anything more fur a minute; jest keepin’ on makin’ little marks in the dirt with the end of his stick. Then he says to me: “‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I’ve been doin’ right smart thinkin’ myself.’
“‘Have you?’ I says.
“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I have. I’ve been thinkin’ that whilst peppers make quite spicy eatin’ and beans are claimed to be very nourishin’ articles of food, still when taken to excess they’re liable to pall on the palate, sooner or later.’
“‘They certainly are,’ I says.
“‘Let’s see,’ he says. ‘This is the last week in July, ain’t it? Back in God’s country, the first of the home-grown watermelons oughter be comin’ in about now, oughten they? And in about another week from now they’ll be pickin’ those great big stripedy rattlesnake melons that grow in the river bottoms down below town, won’t they?’
“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘they will, ef the season ain’t been rainy and set ‘em back.’
“‘Let us hope it ain’t,’ he says, and I could hear his stick scratchin’ in the grit of that desert land, makin’ a scrabblin’ itchy kind of sound.
“‘Jimmy Bagby,’ he says, ‘any man’s liable to make a mistake sometimes, but that don’t necessarily stamp him ez a fool onlessen he sticks to it too long after he’s found out it is a mistake.’
“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I can’t take issue with you there.’”
“‘F’r instance now,’ he says, ‘you take a remark which I let fall some weeks back touch-in’ on flags. Well I’ve been thinkin’ that remark over, Jimmy, and I’ve about come to the conclusion that ef a man has to give up the flag he fout under and can’t have it no longer, he mout in time come to be equally comfortable in the shadder of the flag he was born under. He might even come to love ‘em both, mighty sincerely – lovin’ one fur whut it meant to him once’t and fur all the traditions and all the memories it stands fur, and lovin’ the other fur whut it may mean to him now and whut it’s liable to mean to his children and their children.’
“‘But Billy,’ I says, ‘when all is said and done, we fit in defence of a constitutional principle.’
“‘You bet we did,’ he says; ‘but it’s mostly all been said and it’s practically all been done. I figger it out this way, Jimmy. Reguardless of the merits of a given case, ef a man fights fur whut he thinks is right, so fur ez he pussonally is concerned, he fights fur whut is right. I ain’t expectin’ it to happen yit awhile, but I’m willin’ to bet you something that in the days ahead both sides will come to feel jest that way about it too.’
“‘Do you think so, Billy?’ I says.
“‘Jimmy,’ he say, ‘I don’t only think so – I jest natchelly knows so. I feel it in my bones.’
“‘Then I persume you must be correct,’ I says.
“He waits a minute and then he says: ‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘I don’t believe I’d ever make a success ez one of these here passenger-pigeons. Now, a passenger-pigeon ain’t got no regular native land of his own. He loves one country part of the time and another country part of the time, dividin’ his seasons betwixt ‘em. Now with me I’m afraid it’s different.’
“‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I’ve about re’ch the conclusion that I wasn’t cut out to be a passenger-pigeon, neither.’
“He waits a minute, me holdin’ back fur him to speak and wonderin’ whut his next subject is goin’ to be. Bill Priest always was a master one to ramble in his conversations. After a while he speaks, very pensive:
“‘Jimmy,’ he says, ‘ef a man was to git up on a hoss, say to-morrow momin’ and ride along right stiddy he’d jest about git home by hog-killin’ time,